1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to the martial arts and more particularly to hand strikes and hand movements associated therewith. More particularly, the present invention relates to a glove that is worn by a person practicing martial arts hand strikes, wherein the glove serves to protect the person's hand from possible hurt due to hand strike impact,
2. Description of the Prior Art
The martial arts have become increasingly popular not only because the martial arts provide excellent and proven self defense techniques, but because the martial arts develop the spirit, mind and body of the practitioner. With regard to the former, the martial arts enable the practitioner with ability to evade the advances of an attacker, while also enabling the practitioner to administer strikes to the attacker which are appropriate to the dangers of the encounter. With regard to the latter, the martial arts serve to put the body in tune with the mind, master control of the body, increase mental concentration, and uplift the spirit. Thus, it is no wonder that the martial arts are receiving wide spread attention from people everywhere.
One of the key aspects of martial arts mastery is the ability of the practitioner to adroitly effect hand movements and hand strikes. There are five common hand strikes: 1) the "front knuckle hand strike" involving frontal impact with the index and near index knuckles (see FIG. 8); 2) the "back fist hand strike" involving a rolling movement and an impact with the aforementioned knuckles at the back of the hand (see FIG. 9); 3) the "pseudo ridge hand strike" involving an impact with the metacarpus bone of the index finger (see FIG. 11); 4) the "open palm hand strike" involving impact at the heel of the palm (see FIG. 13); and 5) the "ridge hand strike" involving an impact with the bottom of the hand (see FIG. 15). These hand strikes require simultaneous mental concentration and physical ability. Further, it is a generally accepted principle that these hand strikes should not be practiced in earnest until the hand has built-up enough muscle so as to prevent injury; presumably, too, by the time muscle has been built-up the confidence of the trainee has increased commensurately.
Problematically, a trainee in the martial arts must take a long time to build-up the necessary muscle tissue, which serves as an impediment to moving ahead with training as fast as would otherwise be possible. Accordingly, what is needed in the relevant art is some way to provide protection of the trainee's hand from possible hurt during hand strike exercises so that confidence is always at peak.